US Anglican Ordinariate approved for 1 Jan

At the USCCB meeting, Card. Wuerl announced that on 1 January the Ordinariate for Anglicans will begin.

The bishops asked many questions about this Ordinariate.

One of the questions/issues raised concerned the “availability” of former Anglicans ordained as Catholic priests.

As I understand it, this is a concern for some former Anglicans. Because – at first at least – there are going to be more Anglican Ordinariate priests than places for them to serve, it seems that some Catholic bishops are – what’s the word – eager? to put them to work… as Roman Catholic priests, and not with former Anglicans.

If I understand things properly, this is a bit of a concern in England, though I am not well-informed about that.

47 Responses to US Anglican Ordinariate approved for 1 Jan

I chatted with an Anglican priest in our Ordinariate-bound parish about this last Sunday. He says everyone is waiting for readings on this and many other policy issues, and “so far, we’re making it up as we go along”. As the parish’s interim treasurer, my understanding is that we’ll need to prepare for an audit of our finances, but I know very little beyond that — how it will be done, when it will be scheduled, and so forth. The archbishop has, however, appointed a priest to help Ordinariate-bound parishes in our diocese, and we’ll be meeting with him this coming Sunday, so things are moving, and I have a sense that they’ll work out.

I can see the pull coming from the U.S. bishops, and from the lay faithful of the diocese to engage more and more in the diocesan affairs. But we must be careful not to revisit some of the mistakes we have made in the past with respect to our Eastern brethren here in the United States, demanding their Latinization, or at least conformance to Latin diocesan norms.

This is something which demands delicacy, patience and time to work out.

Now, if an Anglican Ordinariate priest were to ask to help out his Latin brothers, I see no problem here. But we cannot presume or pressure them, otherwise they will simply get swallowed up, and our promises will seem like so much smoke.

Want to provoke a very negative reaction to the whole idea? Start posting Anglicans in Latin parishes. There’s a lack of…”trust” or at least comfort with this , though no priest dare say so and most laity are confused.Imagine a married man with children showing up to say Mass in YOUR church.

Asking an Anglican to provide the Latin ritual seems a poor idea to me, in the interest of maintaining authentic diversity. The celibate priesthood seems like a good idea to me. However I also find it unfortunate that married priests strike us Romans with shock and awe.

Sure. Give them a church and let them celebrate according to the rite approved for the Ordinariate, and then let non-Ordinariate Catholics attend. The problem quickly won’t be too many Ordinariate priests and not enough congregants….

I have submitted a dossier to the CDF and have read just about every word and nuance in the Apostolic Constitution. It states that Ordinariate clergy can celebrate Mass in the Ordinary Form (and intimates that he ought to know how to do that).

I guess I will have to pay more attention to EWTN and contemplate learning two new liturgies at the same time.

Will non-AO priests be able to say the Anglican Use Massm? Would they need special permission?

@vmanning says: Want to provoke a very negative reaction to the whole idea? Start posting Anglicans in Latin parishes. There’s a lack of…”trust” or at least comfort with this , though no priest dare say so and most laity are confused.Imagine a married man with children showing up to say Mass in YOUR church.

I’m not so sure. I’d be curious what most Roman Catholics would think about a married priest. I’ve heard mass from a married-with-children Byzantine Catholic priest a few times, and I was not mortified at all. I think the reported horrors of a married priesthood are probably lost on a majority of Roman Catholics. Present WDTPRS company excepted, of course…

If I’m not mistaken, most former Anglican priests who are now Catholic priests are already priests of ordinary (vs. Ordinariate) Catholic parishes. So it is silly to say that their doing so would cause a problem when the — admittedly small — vast majority of them are already doing so.

I doubt that most Ordinariate priests — typically, long-time Episcopal priests who are accustomed to working within a local diocese — will have an issue with being of assistance to the local bishop and his parishes, just like priests from religious orders often do. The Ordinariate parishes are likely to be considerably smaller than diocesan ones, at least at first, and so the priests are likely to have extra time in which they might be able to say Mass or hear confessions elsewhere, even if they are the pastors of these parishes.

As for the reaction of other Roman Catholics to an Ordinariate priest who may have a wife and children, consider that this is also the case with many vocational deacons, who are also clerics in holy orders, and the church hasn’t imploded because of that.

I’m wondering…just wondering mind you, considering the rich patrimony that our soon-to-be-united Anglican usage priests, along with their attention to detail and beauty…if our bishops aren’t more than a little concerned of the Roman rite faithful going in the opposite direction to rediscover the beauty of a classical translation and Mass they’ve maintained?

The sad part of the Latin Church’s hostility to married clergy is that it led over 1 million Eastern Catholics to become Orthodox.

The Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Newton is reinstituting the married priesthood, and my understanding is no married Latin Catholic could be a candidate for ordination unless they have been a layman for over 10 years before ordination.

In the Eastern tradition, you have the married state and the monastic state. Consequently, all celibate priests must be monks.

But at the same time, I don’t think those of us coming from Catholic traditions that hold the married priesthood in esteem should look unkindly on the Latin tradition to only ordain celibate men.

I’m trying to figure out how anything would change if a married priest showed up at my parish to say Mass. It’s not like his wife and children are going to be dancing in the sanctuary and singing “We’re Father’s family. Nana, nana, boo, boo”! People would likely be more shocked by his liturgical sense than an extra, likely large, family sitting in the pews. Now, of course, if he were assigned to the parish, there would be a bit of catechesis in order. Unless someone has been hiding under a rock for the past 20 years, though, they’re likely to have heard that sometimes the Church sees fit to ordain married converts from the Anglican Communion. It’s not exactly a secret.

Bryan Boyle,
You make a very good point. As someone who used to perform music at Episcopalian services*, I can tell you that I have found the Anglican use liturgy far more beautiful than most OF services I have attended. Once Anglican use comes near me, I’ll be going often — if it is allowed. I am puzzled as to whether or not those of us who do not have the Anglican heritage are able to join Anglican parishes. If not, can we at least worship there regularly?

jfm,
Sure hope that’s not a serious sin, because every time I visit my parents, who are still Episcopalian, I sing with them in the choir. I cleared it with our priest ahead of time. He says “honor thy father and thy mother” is the main thing. Plus of course it’s all Catholic music anyhow.
I do not receive of course.
We have a number of non-Catholic staff in our home parish choir. They don’t receive either.

I am quite sure that you will not be able to become a member of an Ordinariate parish unless you are a former Anglican of some stripe or have some family tie which would enable your membership. This is discussed in the Ordinariate documents. Of course, that doesn’t preclude your attendance, no matter how frequent.

There are many Latin Rite Catholics who belong to Our Lady of the Atonement Anglican Use Catholic Church. This is also true at some of the other AU parishes.

If these parishes draw lapsed Catholics back into the Church it will be a benefit to all.

Archbishop Gomez and another Bishop have celebrated the AU liturgy. I believe that it will go both ways. At. OLA there is a Latin OF Mass every Sunday and they use to celebrate the EF.

Now we must wait to see what the final Anglican Use liturgy will be. As far as the name of the Ordinariate, I know many Anglicans who wish it to be named after Our Blessed Mother.

We are dealing with US Bishops and I think that Pope Benedict is well aware of some of the attitudes they have, however, he also has a very strong opinion on what he wants to see within the Ordinariate and understands the politics within the Church. The Ordinariate is his personal “baby” in a sense and will protect it from those who do not understand what it will mean to the Church as a whole.

This is wonderful news and will dampen the spirits of those Anglicans who hope it will fail and have said it is DOA.

Regarding questions about how a Latin Rite parish would accept a married Priest, my parish has done very well, thank you! All of our clergy, Deacons and Priests, are good homilists, and our married Priest is probably the best. He pulls no punches, calls a sin a sin. His paying job is working as the Personal Secretary to our Bishop, and is both a secular lawyer and a canon lawyer. He came into the church about 25 years ago as part of the Pastoral Provision. His way of celebrating liturgy is, to borrow a phrase, is “Do the Red, Say the Black!”. We as a Church would be fortunate to have many more just like him!

Wouldn’t the priests of the ordinariate be subject to their own ordinary? I don’t understand how the bishop of their local diocese could press them into service outside of Anglican Use parishes.

If there is a surplus of incoming priests in the ordinariate, though, I would imagine that some of them would be happy to pick up some duties in other parishes to fill out their schedules (and, of course, help them make ends meet financially.)

Here in the UK we have had married priests serving in our dioceses alongside celibate priests who remain the majority. There was some initial curiosity from the laity, but, by and large, the only complaints come (ironically) from those who favour the abolition of celibacy entirely, because the ordination of these married converts ‘is an insult to those priests who have discerned a vocation to both priesthood and marriage and have been forced to leave the active ministry’. A position I do not subscribe to.
My neighbour, at the shrine of Our Lady of Consolation at West Grinstead, is a married man, and an excellent priest. In fact, his son was ordained a priest too, for the FSSP, a couple of years ago. We have about eight married priests in our diocese.

I am familiar with the Ordinariate in England for many reasons. There are several issues. First, it is the desire of Rome and the Ordinariate that the parishes come in with the priests when that is possible and that the priests stay with their flock…doing the Anglican version of the NO, which is very similar, but not the Anglican Usage, which is what one sees in Houston, at Our Lady of Walsingham, with which I am familiar as well. Second, there is already a problem in England, of some bishops, not all, seeing and using the new Ordinariate priests as supply priests for parishes in need. Two of the bishops who do not fall into this category, and are giving churches for the use of the Ordinariate are Bishop Crispian Hollis and Bishop Declan Lang. These two bishops understand what the original concerns and desires were and are honoring Rome. The third problem is that some of the church buildings, originally promised by certain Anglican bishops for usage, as the entire parishes went over, have not been given as planned. In other words, those few, particular bishops reneged on their agreements. The last and fourth problem is that the Ordinariate will fail in the next wave of converts if Rome’s wishes are not kept as intended, as the Anglicans have great communities and have in as groups, which is the whole point of the Ordinariate. It is not about individual conversions, as such. If anyone wants to write to me about this, they may do so at polycarp6@gmail.com

Only Anglicans can be members of the Ordinariate, but I go to some of the Masses when in England. There is,of course, no problem with that. And, a former Anglican I know who came in years ago is petitioning to become a priest of the Ordinariate, as he is just beginning his studies, and if this is decided as so, this opens another interesting facet of the Ordinariate being a “rite”, or at least, being treated as such, which is not the case, as they are part of the Latin Rite. It is all very exciting and wonderful.

Cardinal Wuerl stated that, of course, any Catholic can satisfy his Mass obligation by attending an Anglican Use parish Mass, and will be able to do so at an Ordinariate Mass.

I believe it was Fr Hurd who told me that there will be a distinction between being a member of an Ordinariate parish, and being enrolled as a member of the Ordinariate. One will not have to be a former Episcopalian to become a member of an Ordinariate parish, but only those who are former Episcopalians (and their families) will be eligible to be enrolled as members of the Ordinariate. One practical effect of this distinction is that only men who are enrolled in the Ordinariate will be eligible to be ordained for the Ordinariate.

Priests of the Ordinariate will be incardinated in the Ordinariate and owe obedience to the Ordinary. A local bishop will not have the authority to impress an Ordinariate priest into service, but fraternal cooperation between the Ordinary and the local bishop will certainly lead the Ordinary into allowing an Ordinariate priest to “supply” a diocesan need on request of the bishop.
For this purpose, Ordinariate priests will be treated just as religious are treated now when a bishop asks for their help.

In response to some other queries: The present rule is that any priest can use the Anglican Use Book of Divine Worship when celebrating in an Anglican Use church. This rule will probably continue. Both the Book of Divine Worship and the Roman Missal can be used in an Anglican Use parish. Cardinal Wuerl said that, as at present, it is expected that Ordinariate priests will be permitted to use the Roman Missal as well as the liturgical book that will be constructed for use by the Anglican Ordinariates worldwide.

And to mention another clarification that Cardinal Wuerl brought forward: Present Anglican Use parishes will NOT be automatically entered into the Ordinariate. Each parish will have to petition for admission. Although it will be canonically possible for a priest who is not a former Episcopalian to excardinate from a diocese and incardinate into the Ordinariate, such an occurrence is expected to be rare to the vanishing point, done only under truly extraordinary circumstances.

Not true that Ordinariate priests cannot be “pressed into service”. This is already happening in England and a concern for the future of the Ordinariate. As one person said to me, if the Bishop asked you to do something you do it, but it is not in keeping with the intent.

Also, there is no reason for the Anglican Usage parishes to be part of the Ordinariate. And, in Great Britain, the Mass of the Ordinariate is not the same as the Anglican Usage. These are two very different liturgies. One example, is that Anglican Usage is usually ad orientem, and Ordinariate not so; also the language is from a different source. There is a difference in the 1980 Pastoral Provision of John Paul II and the Ordinariate set up in Anglicanorum Coetibus, which is world-wide. At this time, Anglican Usage is only found in North America. Do not confuse the two liturgies or the two pastoral documents.

Regarding the liturgical provision for Personal Ordinariates, it is important to note that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Divine Worship have established an interdicasterial body which will be responsible for provisions for the liturgical celebrations of the Personal Ordinariates. However, from its erection, an Ordinariate will have the option of using the Roman Missal or the Book of Divine Worship already used by the Pastoral Provision or Anglican Use parishes

MargaretC: I am sure that every time a big change of any kind takes place, some people have to put up with a lot of crap. Look at poor Cardinal Newman, who is now so revered but whose conversion pretty much meant dealing with crap from all sides for the rest of his life. Yes he was firm in his convictions, etc. etc., and his temperament may have helped him not get too discouraged. But I’m sure he was pretty fed up with it.

Nevertheless, I’m sorry this is so and I do pray for all concerned. Like Supertradmum above, I think it’s exciting and wonderful!

My understanding was that the Ordinariate would have its own ordinaries (bishops), but I could be wrong. Can someone enlighten me on this? I certainly hope they do. I’d hate to see the Ordinariate just thrown in to the normal machinery, to lose its character and become just a name to throw around.

Mind you, I wouldn’t have a problem with a lot of sharing of resources, both ways, but I don’t want to see this Ordinariate created and then diluted thousands-fold right away. We have too much to learn from them. They have liturgical and musical traditions that are very old and beautiful. We need these things desperately in the Latin rite.

PS, I’d love to see a revised Sarum Rite made legal for the Ordinariate to use anywhere they are. The Sarum rite is, I believe, the old traditional English use.

PS. Some news: The first parish entered the Ordinariate as of October 9 of this year. This parish is St. Luke’s in Bladensburg, Maryland. They were welcomed into the Church as a group at the big Catholic basilica in Washington DC. Not sure of their status til January 1st, 2012, the date of the official canonical institution of the Ordinariate. More to come–I expect that many parishes are waiting until the Ordinariate is officially instituted.

PS, when it comes to breaking up the loud and insistent cliques of dissenters that have plagued the Church for years, there’s nothing like legitimate diversity. The Sarum Rite is actually in Latin because everything liturgical was in those days. We could make a new edition and then translate it for contemporary use to suit the Ordinariate. Maybe eventually we will have a Lutheran or German use too–same thing. If we have several translations of revised Latin texts going on at the same time, the dissidents won’t know whether they’re coming or going. ;) ERGO, they lose their ability to focus people on their complaints and we outsmart them with a smile.

Supertradmum, my comments were entirely concerning the American Ordinariate. I can’t speak to the situation or practice in GB, but Cardinal Wuerl was quite clear that priests of the American Ordinariate will be subject to their ordinary, and that so far as supplying service to the local diocese, they will be treated exactly as regular (religious order) priests are treated now in the United States. The ordinary of the religious (abbot, superior, or whatever) has full discretion in allowing or prohibiting his priests to supply for a parish. Thus, also, the ordinary of the Ordinariate.

Your point about being careful not to confuse the Ordinariate with the Anglican Use is good to keep in mind, but not pertinent to the United States at this time. We don’t have an Ordinariate yet. And I don’t understand it as being pertinent to GB, because the Anglican Use is only for the United States. But, as I say, I am not familiar with how things are currently arranged in GB.

Next year, the distinction will be relevant to the United States. As I wrote, Anglican Use parishes will not automatically be Ordinariate parishes, but will have to enter the Ordinariate one by one. Yet Bishop Vann, who is the new Papal Delegate for the Anglican Use, made it clear that the Anglican Use will gradually wither. Cardinal Wuerl said that the Ordinariate will start with zero resources, which was not true for the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Hence, for a time, the Anglican Use will have to continue as the channel for its parishes to relate to the Holy See, until the American Ordinariate is operating sufficiently to receive them. So even when the American Ordinariate is established, Episcopal parishes who swim the Tiber will enter into the Anglican Use and remain there until the Ordinariate is adequately up and running.

Regarding he future liturgy to replace the Book of Divine Worship, here’s an article by Fr. Christopher Phillips, who was apparently the only prospective Anglican-use priest on the committee established by the CDW to produce the new book.

In 1983 a special committee was established by the Holy See, under the jurisdiction of the Sacred Congregation for Sacraments and Divine Worship (as the CDW was called then), in conjunction with the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The task of the committee was to propose a liturgical book to be used by the parishes and congregations being established under the terms of the Pastoral Provision. I was privileged to serve on that committee. Then-Archbishop (later Cardinal) Virgilio Noe served as chairman, and there were various liturgists and theologians taking part. I was the only member of the committee who would actually be using the liturgy we were to discuss.

As we began our deliberations, it became evident the members of the committee did not all have the same agenda – and that, of course, would not be unexpected. The majority of the membership did not share an Anglican background, and so had not been formed by an Anglican liturgical life – again, that would be expected, and it was perfectly reasonable that the committee membership would be comprised of people from different backgrounds.

Within a short time after beginning our work, it became clear that there were three positions developing within the committee. There was the position (certainly my position) that all of the Anglican Missal tradition should be approved; there was the position that none of the Anglican Missal tradition should be approved; and there was the position that we should pick and choose, incorporating bits and pieces of the Book of Common Prayer.

As an Anglican I was used to married priests (and bishops); now as a Catholic I wouldn’t be the least bit shocked or perturbed by a priest with a wife and children. Married priests aren’t a problem: having priests’ wives and children around the church and presbytery might be a bit of a shock for traditionalist Catholics though!

Martial Artist,
What on earth is an “Anglo-Lutheran Catholic Church?”
There are TWO of them in Atlanta on this map . . . and I have never heard of such a thing, or of either of the churches listed. Apparently it is a relatively recent group, founded in 1997.
But there’s an announcement on one church’s website that they’re heading for the Ordinariate.

The Sarum Rite has not existed as a formal rite for over 500 years, although there have been efforts to revise it among Anglicans, such as the group at Primrose Hill in London. One-off Masses and vestments can be seen now and then in England and I have attended a Catholic service done in the Sarum Rite once. However, there is not much interest except among liturgical buffs for such a resurgence.

I’m curious as to whether as an interim measure before Rome has sorted out the Ordinariate liturgy within the next few years if the Anglican Use Book of Divine Worship is going to be updated to reflect the new translation of the Roman Missal where the BDW language tracks the current Roman Missal, e.g., the consecration and offertory prayers. I would think that the AU parishes in the US would want to preserve their prayerbook patrimony by just updating the BDW in this way. While it may not be possible to have an interim revised BDW published , maybe one could cut and paste the revised translation portions in an existing BDW copy for altar use? And I believe Fr. Phillips of Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio stated on the Anglo-Catholic that such revision would not need specific approval of the Roman dicasteries — I wonder if that is the case. I suppose you could argue that the recognitio of the Roman Missal 3rd edition English by the Congregation for Divine Worship would mean automatic approval for corresponding changes in the BDW.

Thanks for your reply. I thought I had read that the Ordinariate was to have its own bishops, yes, and was to be separate from the usual geographical structure, which makes perfect sense given the situation and the history. If I’m not mistaken we’ve had an Episcopalian use in the US for some time, but it never really took off because the converting parishes just come into dioceses and more or less “get lost in the shuffle.” This new Ordinariate should be a lot better and should prevent the loss of the traditions so that they can be kept for the people who love them, and so that they can serve as a bit of a model for the Latin Rite which desperately needs them.

Martial Artist,
I went on the Google map-wow, I couldn’t believe all the parishes that will be part of the Anglican Ordinariate!
And what interesting names some of them had: St. Thomas More; St. Therese; Our Lady of Mount Carmel; Blessed John Henry Newman. Very cool!
I was a little disappointed that not all of them indicated what their addresses were.
There were a lot in the northeastern US-I would be curious to know if there were any in New York State….

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“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”

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Food For Thought

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. . . . Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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